


not under my heart but in it

by lesbianophelia (orphan_account)



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Adoption, F/M, Families of Choice, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24546751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/lesbianophelia
Summary: “Peeta?”“Wha-?” he asks around his toothbrush.“Do you ever wonder,” I start, though I know he does. He’s drawn a portrait of nearly every child born in District Twelve since it was rebuilt. “If maybe it wouldn’t the the worst thing? Having children?”(Reuploaded. Originally published fall of 2019.)
Relationships: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Comments: 21
Kudos: 105





	1. Aster

Maybe it’s cruel to mention it. It’s not that Peeta asks me, really, it’s just that he knows where we both stand. He wants children so badly. I can see it when he holds our godchildren, can see it whenever Delly Cartwright asks, very softly, if he’d like to hold her youngest. There’s always a new youngest, I feel like. She might as well be repopulating the district on her own, at this rate. Something nobody would ever consider before the war.  
  
_“She has four children,_ ” I can almost hear Peeta chiding, though I haven’t complained about this to him recently. _“One more than my parents. It’s nothing ridiculous_.”  
  
Still.  
  
And Peeta would make such a good father. Everything we have been through, and he has somehow come out braver. Brighter, even, on good days.  
  
We still have our bad days, of course. But they don’t consume us the way they used to, and usually, it’s only one of us at a time. The other one, could, conceivably, watch over the baby for a day or so while one of us was pulled under the waves of darkness that always feel just under our feet.

Maybe it’s cruel to say anything at all. But the night after we meet Delly’s youngest and final, a third little girl, I gather up all my courage while Peeta and I are brushing our teeth and say,  
  
“Peeta?”  
  
“Wha-?” he asks around his toothbrush.  
  
“Do you ever wonder,” I start, though I know he does. He’s drawn a portrait of nearly every child born in District Twelve since it was rebuilt. “If maybe it wouldn’t the the worst thing? Having children?”  
  
He nearly chokes. I feel guilty for having done it to him. I feel guilty for not asking him this months ago, when the thought first entered my mind. He coughs and I pat him roughly on the back while he spits into the sink, the gesture maybe a little too brusque.  
  
“Um. I -- yeah,” he says. “I mean, I wonder about it. I mean, I --” he swallows. Wets his lips. “I think about it all the time.”  
  
“I just--” I start. “I don’t think we would be bad at it. Having children.”  
  
His eyes are so wide. I can tell that just behind them he is working his way through every possible version of this conversation. Trying so hard to find something to say that won’t startle me. “We wouldn’t,” he agrees, sounding almost hoarse. He clears his throat and tries again. “We would . . . they would be loved. And fed. And -- and _safe_ ,” his voice breaks a little on that last one. “It’s scary but--”  
  
“It is scary,” I interrupt to agree. So he doesn’t get ahead of himself. Only, I can feel myself going there, with him. Can feel myself thinking all the things I’ve put away for so long. “There’s no more Games,” I say.  
  
“No more Games,” he agrees.

. . .

It’s weeks later before I bring it up again. “If we did,” I start in bed, when we’re mostly asleep, and he props himself up on a shoulder so fast I know there’s no doubt what I’m talking about. “You would have to be ready for--” I stop, swallow. I don’t know what he would need to be ready for. “I would need you,” I manage after a beat.  
  
Peeta’s hand comes up to touch my jaw, so gently I feel my eyes brimming with tears. “And you have me,” he says. “Haven’t you always?”  
  
Haven’t I?  
  
. . .

Maybe my body knows something I don’t. Maybe I waited too long. Maybe --  
  
Peeta quiets my fears. Kisses me and says that it’ll happen. That even if it doesn’t happen, we’ll be okay.

. . .

It’s too hard, some days, to go with Peeta to the Community Home when he drops off his baked goods for the week. Hard to watch him be swarmed by the children who live there. One Sunday, they actually tackle him, and I watch him as he laughs, pretending to fight off the swarm of little boys and girls who have been waiting all week for him to come back.  
  
The Community Home is different, now, from what it used to be. Lighter. Peeta and I spent a lot of time -- and money -- helping with the reopening of the center. For the most part, the children who live here don’t stay very long at all. I wasn’t a fan of it, at first, the idea of having the children from our Districts shipped off around the rest of the country. Peeta thinks about it differently.  
  
_“If there’s a loving home that wants a child,” he said, “Why on earth would we keep a child from them?”_  
  
I force my eyes away from the group of children. There’s a little blond boy in the corner, his hands twisting in his lap while he watches my husband bounce one of the other little ones on his shins. She screams like she’s flying, and the little boy looks away.

“Who’s that?” I ask the woman at the counter. Peeta and I are here often enough that we know all the children by name. And I know that if the little boy had met Peeta already, he would be with the rest of them.  
  
“Aster,” she responds. “He’s new.”  
  
I noticed. “Where’s he from?”  
  
“Nine,” she answers. “He was taken away from his parents.” Her eyes linger on him, at this. “They wanted to move him out of the District completely. We had room. He got here last night.”  
  
That much is true. The people of Twelve do mostly take care of their own.  
  
I sit down beside the little boy -- Aster. He shifts away from me, just a little, and I make sure I keep my eyes on the group of children in front of us when I hold one of the packets of cookies towards him.  
  
“Take one,” I suggest, sure to keep my voice soft. “They’re chocolate chip.”  
  
He’s still for a beat and then reaches for one, very carefully.  
  
“My name is Katniss,” I say. It’s one thing I do like about it, being here. Children are the only people I need to introduce myself to. “That’s Peeta, my husband,” I nod towards him. “We bring pastries.”  
  
His voice is quiet. Tremulous. “Thank you.”  
  
“You’re welcome,” I say. A glance at him reveals some still fading bruises on his chubby little arms. I’m careful not to stare, though it makes me want to cry.  
  
We sit in silence. Peeta sits up, at least, one of his favorite of the little boys hanging off of his back, over his shoulders, and smiles at me. And then his eyes fall on the little boy sitting just beside me, and the smile slips, just a little bit.  
  
“Peeta?” Aster repeats, motioning towards him.  
  
“That’s Peeta,” I agree. “Would you like to meet him?”

. . .

“He reminds me of you,” I admit while we walk back to the Victor’s Village. “It’s the hair.”  
  
“And the abusive parents,” Peeta says, a little dry. For a moment, I think I’ve offended him, but he doesn’t look hurt, exactly. He just looks faraway.  
  
“Have you thought--?” I start, and then stop myself. Maybe there’s a reason he never brought it up. “I just wonder . . .”  
  
Peeta squeezes my hand. “I have thought about it,” he agrees. “I think about it every Sunday, Katniss. I think about--” a breath escapes him. “If anyone had given enough of a shit about kids before. To take me away from my mother.”  
  
I stop, though we’re only a few yards from the house and fold him into my arms quickly. A shaky exhale escapes him and he says,  
  
“I’m fine,” he says. “Really. I should just--” he swallows. “I’m fine,” he says again, kissing my forehead. “It’s okay.”  
  
But he has nightmares that night.

. . .

I come to the Community Home without my husband. Everyone there loves me a little less than him, though some of the girls who like me best do come to my side. I pass out the few treats I did bring, though there aren’t as many, and make my way to the counter.  
  
“I just wanted to see Aster,” I admit, my voice low. It’s stupid. It shouldn’t be a secret. I learn that he’s been hiding himself under beds. I sit in one of them with him on my lap and sing lullabies that I used to sing to my sister. Ones that haven’t passed my lips in years, not even to my godchildren.  
  
He curls up on my chest, and though it’s been months of Peeta and I trying to get pregnant, though I’ve started the long process of resigning myself to not want too much, I feel myself start to want again.  
  
. . .  
  


Aster is glued to my side the next two times Peeta and I visit together. He’s only two years old, I learn. Tiny. Too little to be so guarded. Peeta comes to sit beside us one rainy Sunday and I’m stunned when Aster leans right off of my lap and onto Peeta’s.  
  
“Hey, buddy,” Peeta whispers, the smile on his face telling me that he knows why this is significant. “Hey. I’m Peeta.”  
  
Aster nods, as if he already knows this. I guess he does. Peeta is around here often enough. “Peeta,” he repeats, his little hand crumpling the neck of Peeta’s tee shirt.  
  
Two of Peeta’s fingers smooth over Aster’s curls, very carefully. I try not to stare. _Please love him,_ I want to say. _Peeta, please love him, too_. Peeta bounces him in his lap, very softly, and Aster smiles. Something that’s mostly been reserved for me, until now.  
  
“Oh,” Peeta says, very softly, returning it with one of his own, bright and happy, the way Peeta normally is when we’re here. “Look at you. You like Katniss better, though, don’t you?” he asks.  
  
“Katniss.” Aster repeats, nodding his little head. The name is a little garbled, but recognizable as my own.  
  
Peeta laughs. “Yeah,” he says. “I would, too.”  
  
  
  
Once Aster is back on my lap, Peeta reads a book to a group of rowdy children, and I sit with Aster a few feed behind the rest of them, my fingers in his tiny hand, his head pressed against my chest.  
  
I haven’t told Peeta about my extra visits. That I end up here every time I don’t know where to go. Only, as I’m returning from putting him to bed, the woman behind the desk says,  
  
“Katniss has really done so much work with him. It’s amazing. He doesn’t like any of us as much as he likes her.”  
  


. . .

Peeta and I make it all the way home before I turn to look at him.  
  
“Katniss?” he asks, reaching out to touch my braid, and I hold my tongue, thinking that he’s going to tell me no. He’s going to break my heart, going to insist that Aster goes home with somebody else, maybe in another District.  
  
“Yeah,” I manage, already trying to start the process of losing somebody else. I’ll still visit him. Until another family snatches him up. Another family who won’t want a victor holding him.  
  
“Katniss,” he says again, and I can tell the way he’s blinking is meant to keep him from crying. “Katniss, I want to bring him _home_.”  
  
A sob catches in my throat.  
  
Peeta frowns, maybe thinking he’s misread something. “I want--” he starts, and the swallows. “I don’t want to stop trying. But -- Katniss. Don’t you feel like he’s _ours_?”  
  
I do. Of course I do. “Peeta,” I choke.  
  
“I thought,” he begins, and takes a deep breath through his mouth. “Was I wrong?”  
  
I shake my head, feeling a little frantic. “No,” I say. “No. Peeta, you’re not wrong. I --” I sob again, just a little. “Tonight?” I ask. “Should we go back tonight?”  
  
Peeta grabs my hand. “He’s asleep,” he says, though he sounds regretful. “We shouldn’t wake him up and bring him someplace new.”  
  
He’s right, but I don’t like it.  
  
“But,” Peeta starts. “We could get his room ready tonight.”  
  
. . .

  
We paint the walls in the spare room blue. Change the sheets, though I know there’s no chance whatsoever that he’ll spend the night in here. At least not right away. We’ll send away for a crib as soon as we can. I wish I had started knitting a blanket for him the day I met him. That I could give him one as soon as he comes home with us. I settle for using my sewing machine, instead, and making the tiniest quilt I ever have with some of the yellow fabric I’ve been holding onto for months.  
  
Peeta paints his name on the wall. Surrounds it with little aster flowers. Turns around once it’s mostly finished and finds me crying. He’s crying, too, even as he kisses me.  
  
“We’re gonna be parents,” he chokes. “Katniss--”  
  
It’s not desperate, when we’re together that night. Peeta and I take our time with each other. Neither of us say it, but we’re both thinking about it.  
  
This is the last night we’ll spend alone in this house.

. . .

We sleep for maybe three hours, all told. The Community Home won’t officially open until ten, but there’s so much else to do. Peeta bakes bread and cookies and we walk to the market together and pick out baby clothes, and when Peeta picks up a tiny little plaid shirt he bursts into tears all over again.  
  
“You’re going to be a father,” I say, though it won’t help all the crying.  
  
He scrubs a hand over his face, shaking his head just a little. Like he can’t believe it. “I went to go see him,” he admits, hushed. “On Saturday.”  
  
That’s why Aster came to sit on his lap. “I’ve been visiting, too,” I say.  
  
“I know,” says Peeta, too patient. Oh. That must be why he went to see him. “I held him, and I just --” he swallows. “Katniss. He’s ours.”  
  
“He’s ours,” I agree, and the tears are stinging at the backs of my eyes again.

. . .  
  
Aster has been home with us for a week when I realize that I’ve missed my cycle.  
  
We cry again.


	2. Mama

The night we met our son, Katniss admitted that she thought he looked like me. And he does, if you squint. It’s mostly the hair, the riot of blond curls that some well meaning volunteer at the Community Home had combed out, the morning Katniss and I met him. His hair is like mine. A little triangle cloud when you force a brush through it. And the dimples, too. Mine used to be much more pronounced when I was little.   
  
His eyes are green, though. And his nose is different. His little eyelashes are so long and so dark. He is so cute that it feels painful, sometimes. Probably even cuter for not having any Mellark blood in him. Not that I would say that out loud. Katniss would roll her eyes at me for saying it. Especially now that she’s pregnant. Pregnant with a baby who will have Mellark blood, and who will be very, very cute, because of all the Everdeen to balance it out.   
  
Aster runs straight from the front door to my post in the kitchen, attaching himself to my prosthetic leg in a way that might hurt when he’s a little bigger. I scoop him up and put him on my hip, so he can get a good look at what I’m baking. Because he’s just like his mother, and it’ll make him very excited.   
  
“I made someone’s favorite,” I say, my voice low. Like it’s a secret between the two of us. “How was your walk, buddy?”   
  
“Good,” he answers, reaching for one of the lumps of dough. I make a soft _tsk_ sound and redirect him to the plate of actually baked cheese buns. “Mama’s slow,” he mentions as he grabs one.   
  
I laugh. And then I nearly drop him when I realize what he’s just said. “Aster,” I say. “Who’s slow, buddy?”   
  
Aster looks at me like I’m very stupid. “Mama,” he says, slowly. “Mama’s slow.”   
  
Mama. _Mama_. Katniss and I have been very careful, these past few months. Have tried -- at her mother’s suggestion, because apparently Katniss had a phase where she insisted on calling her parents by their first names -- to only refer to each other as _Mama_ and _Papa_. Not that we would force him to call us that, or even ask. But if he wanted . . .   
  
And apparently, he wanted.   
  
“You’re right,” I say, trying to blink away my tears. “Yes. Mama is slow. Mama is _so_ slow. You should tell her.”   
  
Katniss comes around the corner. I think the delay probably came from the trouble she has unlacing her boots, though she insists that I shouldn’t help her with it until she’s truly too big to do it herself. Six months pregnant, already. Six months and one week since Aster came home with us.   
  
“Oh, thank you for cooking,” she says, resting a hand on her stomach. “I was thinking we could have the chicken tonight? I just want an excuse to make mashed potatoes.”   
  
“Yeah, yeah,” I say, distracted while she presses a kiss against Aster’s forehead, smoothing his curls away from his eyes before she reaches for one of the buns. “Hey, buddy. Can you tell her what you just told me?”   
  
Aster’s eyebrows knit together. He’s getting suspicious. Like he’ll get in trouble for saying it.   
  
“No, buddy, it’s okay,” I say, and kiss the side of his face. “She wants to hear you say it.”   
  
Now I get a suspicious look from Katniss. “Hear you say what?”   
  
“Mama’s slow,” Aster says, a third time. “When we walk, Mama’s slow.”   
  
Katniss registers it much faster than I did and practically yanks him out of my arms, she’s so excited to hold him. “Yes,” she says, kissing his forehead again. When I see the tears shining in her eyes, I can’t blink them away from mine. _“Yes_ , baby, that’s right. Your Mama _is_ slow. Do you know why?”   
  
“Havin’ a baby,” Aster says plaintively.   
  
“That’s _right_ ,” Katniss croons, her voice sounding broken. “That’s right. Mama’s slow because she’s gonna have _another_ baby.” She taps his nose and he giggles.   
  
“And what are you gonna be when Mama has the baby?” I ask. We’ve been working on this. Another suggestion from Katniss’s mother, who thinks that it’s good to make sure he understands that we’re _all_ excited about the baby. As a family.   
  
A family. All at once. That’s what we are.   
  
“Big brother!” Aster says, and I kiss the tip of his nose.   
  
“That’s right!” I say. “And you’re gonna the smartest, cutest, sweetest big brother ever, aren’t you?”   
  
He giggles again. So far from the little boy who cowered beside Katniss while I played with the children in the Community Home.   
  
“How you doing, Mama?” I ask, and Katniss rolls her eyes just a little, reaching up to wipe at her tears with the hand that isn’t supporting Aster.   
  
“I was just thinking I was over the part where I cry all the time,” she laughs.   
  
“Peeta,” says Aster, very seriously, and Katniss’s face morphs into something I think is almost apologetic. Like I would ever begrudge her this, because it came sooner for her.   
  
“Aster,” I return.   
  
“Mama’s crying.”   
  
“I _know_ ,” I say. “But that’s okay. Mama’s crying because she’s happy.”   
  
“Oh.” Aster considers this for a second, and then rests a little hand on Katniss’s cheek and says. “Mama. Don’t cry.”   
  
Katniss laughs, because this only makes her cry more. “Okay, baby,” she says. “Mama will try to stop crying. You wanna go back to Papa?”   
  
Aster nods, and Katniss passes him back over to me. The way she watches us, sometimes . . . It makes all the waiting feel so worth it. I would have waited forever, if it meant she would be so sure about what she wanted. That she wanted this. Us.   
  
Aster rests his head against my shoulder. Katniss calls him _magnet boy_ , sometimes, because he always wants to be attached to one of us. That works out well, though, because neither of us are generally particularly inclined to put him down.

Sometimes, when I remember the way he was bruised when we met, I want to throw up.   
  
I think that if Katniss ever met the people they took him away from, she would kill them.

Aster smacks my face, very gently, with his palm. “Peeta,” he says. “Don’t cry.”   
  
“Oh, I’m sorry buddy,” I say, kissing him on his little nose. “You gotta deal with it. Your parents are the biggest crybabies in District Twelve.”   
  
“Crybabies,” he repeats, looking between the two of us. “Why?”   
  
“Because we love you,” I say, not expecting it to be a good enough answer for him, but he just sinks a little further against me.   
  
“Love you,” he babbles back. He’s always been so easy, with that one. He said it the day we brought him home, right after Katniss said it to him for the first time, and it felt a little bit like getting punched in the stomach. But in a good way.   
  
“I think it’s naptime,” Katniss says, and though he fights it some days, he doesn’t so much as stiffen at the word. Instead, he just grabs at the neck of my shirt, like he did in the Community Home, the day after I went to go see him by myself for the first time.   
  
“You come too,” he demands.   
  
“Yeah, all right,” I say. “If you insist.”   
  
Katniss hates when I rile him up before bed, but I still let him bounce down onto the mattress from about a foot up because I know it’ll make him giggle. She kisses me, very softly, and then joins him on the bed.   
  
If Aster hadn’t been very clear about wanting me to come nap with them, now would be a good time to sketch them. I try to memorize it, but then Aster says, “ _Peeta_ ,” in something that’s so much like a whine that I have no choice but to join them on the mattress. Katniss and I lay facing each other, with Aster between us. I let my hand rest on her stomach and she offers me a little smile when I notice that the baby is kicking like crazy.   
  
“The baby must like it when we’re all together,” Katniss murmurs.   
  
The baby and I have that in common.


	3. daddy

My wife is a lot of things. Subtle isn’t one of them.

She was a goner for Aster as soon as she met him. Kept sneaking away, after that. Leaving for the woods but coming back without any game. Bringing more and more of my baking from the week out with her. I didn’t realize at first that it was because she was going to the Community Home without me. If anything, I was usually the one more inclined to go without her.

But I worked it out on about the second week, when the little boy who had been hunched and distant beside her just a week before was glued to her hip. When I saw the way she looked at him -- so familiar. So affectionate.   
  
At first, I thought maybe she had another favorite. A new kid she would want to help. But this was something different. This was something I only saw on her face when we talked about our own someday children.

When I showed up to the Community Home on my own, the woman behind the counter gave me a knowing smile and said, “Are you here to see Aster?”   
  
“Katniss has been visiting him?” I asked.   
  
“Every night, just about,” she laughed. “It’s actually great. She convinced him to stop hiding under the beds.”   
  
Hiding under the beds. It sounded like my wife, back when she used to lock herself in closets. “What does she do?” I asked, trying to sound like I was only mildly curious. “When she comes here to visit?”   
  
“Just -- sings to him, mostly,” the woman says. “It always seems private. I try to not watch.”   
  
I was afraid he wouldn’t like me. The others in the Community Home warmed to me pretty easily, but I knew already that he was different. I had given him pastries, before. Had invited him to come play, while the rest of the children swarmed me on the floor in the main room. But he hadn’t wanted to.   
  
And what would I do? If Katniss had fallen in love with the only child in District Twelve who wouldn’t want me as their father? How could I live with that?   
  
“Aster,” the woman said, very sweetly. “You have a visitor.”   
  
And I watched his little curly head pop up, clearly searching for Katniss. And I knew that maybe even if he didn’t like me, we would have to bring him home. That of all the unforgivable things I did to Katniss when I was hijacked, keeping her from this little boy would be the absolute worst.   
  
Only, when I sat down on the single bed beside him, he held two of my fingers in his entire hand.   
  
“You know my wife,” I said, as if it wasn’t absurd to try to have a conversation with a two year old like this. “Katniss.”   
  
“Katniss,” he repeated. Or, something like Katniss. Something close enough. “Katniss. Katniss.”   
  
“She’s not here,” I said. “But I am. I hope that’s all right. I’m Peeta. Do you remember me?”   
  
He stared off, a little dejected, and I thought how stupid it was to bring her up at all. And then, decisive, he said, “Peeta.” And hopped off the bed and brought me a book to read him. Maybe because he knew that adults read books, but some hopeful part of me thought, maybe because he remembers that I read books to the others.   
  
I read him eight books. Every time I finished one, he would just press another one into my hands. It was something about the way he stared at me, while I did. Something about the fact that I already knew that he loved Katniss.   
  
Something about the way that he climbed right up into my lap, the next day, when I sat down next to them, and grabbed my tee shirt.   
  
Ours, it felt like. Like we had tried for more than a year to have a child, so one just . . . came to District Twelve to find us.

. . .

  
Delly Cartwright tries to pick him up to say hello as soon as she breezes into the house, and he lets out an alarmed cry that neither Katniss or I have heard before. I’m closest, though Katniss races in from the living room, and he lifts his little arms towards me.   
  
“I’m sorry,” says Delly. “I didn’t know--”   
  
“It’s okay,” I say. “Aster, sweetheart, this is your Auntie Delly.”   
  
Delly offers a sheepish little wave. “I’m sorry, bud,” she says. “I won’t try to pick you up again.”   
  
“Can you say _Aunt Delly_?” I try.   
  
Aster keeps his face pressed against my shoulder.   
  
“Some other time,” I say.   
  
“He’s going to love me,” Delly says, sounding determined. “I brought presents. I thought--” she clears her throat. “I didn’t imagine Katniss was going to throw a baby shower.”   
  
Katniss scoffs, just a little.   
  
“That’s what I thought,” Delly says. “And they’re hand-me-downs. But they should fit him, I think. He’s really little, isn’t he?”   
  
Now that she mentions it, I guess he must be, compared to Delly’s children.   
  
“That’s really sweet of you,” I say. “Thanks, Dell.”   
  
“You finally got a baby,” she says, sounding like she’s almost overcome by the idea of it. “Oh. Peeta. I’m just so _happy_ for you both.”

I catch Katniss’s eyes on mine and bury my smile in Aster’s tiny sweater. “So are we,” I admit.

. . .

  
One night, the windows are open, and the door shuts harder than it ought to behind Katniss. Aster was asleep, was curled up right at my side, in what always ends up being the tiny space between me and Katniss, but the sound makes him jerk awake.   
  
I hold him while he shakes, and Katniss strokes at his hair and sings, very softly, until the crying stops.   
  
I wonder if she’s thinking about the bruises from when we first met him. I wonder if she ever stops thinking about them. I don’t. Cant.   
  
He sleeps sandwiched between us, both of us laying on our sides, facing each other. We sleep with the windows closed and take care that no doors slam behind us.

. . .   
  


Katniss tries to set him down in his crib for the first time one night and is rewarded with a blood curdling scream as soon as he wakes. He screams for me. For _Peeta_. We both run to the spare bedroom, but he tucks himself against my chest so very tightly once I pick him up that I can’t imagine ever setting him down.   
  
“I’m going to request his file, from the Community Home in Nine,” I say, smoothing my hand over his curls. “See if they know anything we should be avoiding.”   
  
“Do you think he’s going to remember? When he’s older?” Katniss asks, smoothing her hand over his back. “He’s so little. But--”   
  
“Even if he doesn’t remember it,” I say, my voice a little rough. “He’ll carry it with him, Katniss.”   
  
She wraps her arms around us both.

. . .   
  
We learn, from the court report, that I was right to think that my parents and his would get along. They favored a lot of the same punishments. Aster isn’t likely to enjoy being in a room alone anytime very soon, which is why he follows us around the way he does. Flinches at sudden movements. Hates loud noises. Had those bruises, when we met. Only really likes to be held by the two of us. _Magnet boy_ , we call him, still. It just makes a little more sense now.   
  
Delly tells me that if anyone in District Twelve was going to parent a child with trauma, it may as well be the two of us.   
  
Delly talks very softly around Aster. Offers her arms but doesn’t make any move to pick him up. He asks her to read him a book instead, and she complies.   
  
“That’s where it starts,” I warn, unable to help my grin. “That’s where he gets you.”   
  
. . .

Katniss is getting worried that he isn’t calling me Papa. She doesn’t say it outright, but there’s always just a little bit of begging in her voice when she calls me that in front of Aster. I think it almost gets worse the closer to the end of the pregnancy we get. Your papa. Your _papa._ Go tell _your papa_ what you want for dinner.   
  
I don’t mind, though. For all my worry, before I really met him, I don’t think there’s anything resembling a chance that he doesn’t at least _like_ me. He always parrots it back, when I tell him I love him. Always holds onto my fingers when we walk. Hugs at my legs when I walk through the door if I’ve been away while he and Katniss were at home. Lets me hold him and kiss him and love him, and absolutely refuses to allow Delly or her husband come near him.   
  
He doesn’t need to call me Papa. Not to be my son. Not for me to love him. He can call me Peeta the rest of his life, as far as I’m concerned. Doesn’t make me less of his father.

. . .   
  


“You’re sure you wanna go off with your papa?” Katniss asks, pretending to be put out. “You’re sure you don’t wanna just stay right here with your mama?”   
  
Aster shakes his little head, already all bundled up in the red hat and scarf Katniss knit for him. “Gonna go help Peeta,” he says. “Mama, you’re too pregnant.”   
  
She laughs weakly at his criticism, curling her hand over her stomach. He isn’t wrong, exactly. She’s had less and less energy to wander around the district with us, which is just as well, because her mother thinks any extra walking could induce early labor. Aster loves to walk with me to the train station, and I’m expecting a shipment of baking stuff that I’ll have to lug back to the Victor’s Village.

Aster is coming with me. To _help_ , and to give Katniss a tiny bit of peace and quiet. And also because I want to make sure he gets to spend as much time alone with me as he wants before the baby is born.

I can’t help but to feel a little bit proud -- and maybe a little competitive, that he’s so invested in coming with me so he can help. I promised him this morning that we could eat cookies while we walked. It’s probably the only reason he’s going along with it.   
  
I come to the couch and kiss first Katniss’s forehead and then her stomach. The baby will be here in the coming weeks. Katniss says she likes being pregnant, but that she hates this part of it.   
  
“Okay, Aster-buddy,” I say. “Can you give Mama a kiss goodbye?”   
  
He does. And then completely rats me out. “Peeta said we could have cookies.”   
  
Katniss shoots me a disbelieving look. “What? No cookies for your _incredibly_ pregnant wife?”   
  
“I--” I start to protest, and Aster just kisses her forehead, no doubt because he’s just seen me do it.   
  
“I’ll share,” he promises. “Peeta. Cookies?”   
  
“You heard him,” says Katniss. “Peeta. Cookies.” But before I can go to grab them, she grabs the front of my shirt and pulls me down for a kiss -- a real one, on her lips. “You’re such a good dad,” she says, very softly. “The best one.”  
  
“Dad.”   
  
All the air in my lungs leaves me in a rush. Katniss’s eyes flick between the two of us, very carefully, as if not to disturb the moment.   
  
“Yeah,” I choke. “Yeah. Yes. I’m -- I’m your dad.”   
  
_Dad_. Not Papa, not like we thought. Dad. I’m his _dad_. The world blurs through my tears and I swipe them away on my jacket sleeve.   
  
“He’s your daddy,” Katniss supplies, her voice thick with tears. “Just like I’m your mama.”   
  
Aster squints at me. “Daddy,” he tries, very carefully, and a breathless little laugh escapes Katniss. Like she’s relieved. Like she was really worried, all this time.   
  
It’s not that I didn’t think Aster loved me.   
  
But he called me his _dad_. I try to say something -- anything -- but I can only manage another strange, shaky exhale.   
  
“You just don’t like saying Papa,” Katniss realizes, and Aster shakes his head so quickly I think he might lose his hat.   
  
“No,” he says. “Not Papa.”   
  
“You don’t have to call me Papa,” I soothe, reaching over to pull his hat back down.   
  
“Papa -- Papa was mean,” he manages, with some difficulty. Katniss and I both reach for him at the same time, but I get there first and he climbs into my arms so easily that I could almost sob. _Magnet boy_ , I think. Aster glances over at Katniss before he continues. “Peeta’s not mean.”   
  
I can’t swallow the sob back, this time. _Mean_ is a new concept. Katniss called Buttercup _mean_ when he tried to snap at Aster’s feet a couple weeks ago. Katniss reaches for him again, her hand grabbing at the air. I’d like nothing less in the world than to let go of my son right now, but I do kneel at the side of the couch, letting him sit on the very edge of the cushion. Still pressed against my chest, but close enough for Katniss to get her hands on him, too. She’s rubbing at his back, I think. I’m not paying much attention to her, truthfully.   
  
“Nobody gets to be mean to you,” I manage. How was I once so good at words? Aster manages to completely knock them out of me all the time. This beautiful, perfect little boy. Somebody was mean to him, once. Somebody who got to call himself Papa years before I did. “Nobody, ever again.”   
  
“Not mean,” Aster says again, as if he thinks I missed the compliment, somehow.   
  
“Yeah, buddy,” I say. “‘Cause I’m your dad,” I say, trying to will myself to pull it together. “And Dads aren’t supposed to be mean.”   
  
My own father was a coward, an enabler. But he wasn’t mean, exactly. Not in the way I know Aster is talking about.   
  
“My dad,” Aster repeats, again.   
  
Katniss attempts to muffle her sob against the back of his coat, but he whips around at the sound of it.   
  
“Mama,” he says. “Mama, don’t cry.”   
  
“We never tell _you_ not to cry,” Katniss complains half-heartedly, but she does manage to smile at him through the tears, so he doesn’t think anything is horribly wrong. “Oh. My beautiful, brave boy,” she says, reaching up to touch the curl that hangs loose from underneath his hat. “We love you so much. You know that? Your daddy and me.”   
  
“Love you so much,” he mimics, reaching over and grabbing my hand. “Peeta? Where’s the cookies?”   
  
A breathless laugh escapes me. Yes. He’s Katniss’s son. “You wanna come with me?” I ask. “We can go get them.” _And your pregnant mother can pull herself together_ , I think but don’t say. I want to tell her that this is what I meant, those months ago, when I said he would carry it.   
  
“C’mon,” I prompt.   
  
“Hey,” Katniss says. “Aster. Who’s that?” she points towards me. “Is that your daddy?”   
  
I want to tell her that we shouldn’t push it. That he can call me that when he’s ready. But Aster just climbs back up into my arms and sighs. “Daddy,” he agrees.

I kiss the top of his head. “Let’s go,” I say, because I need to learn at some point how to not be completely undone by that, and I’m still crying. “Those cookies aren’t gonna get themselves.”   
  
I hear Katniss’s sniffling before we even reach the kitchen.   
  
“Daddy.”   
  
“Aster,” I return, though I’m so used to saying that after _Peeta_ that it comes out weird and choked.   
  
“Did I make mama sad?”   
  
I shake my head. “No, buddy. She’s crying because you made us very, very happy.” I press the bag of cookies into his hand. “Go give these to your mama. But make sure she saves you one.”   
  
His little legs take off running into the kitchen and I take another moment to wipe roughly at my eyes at the sound of his tiny, little, “Mama, Daddy said you had to save me one.”


	4. Ay-Mish

We didn’t tell anybody we were trying. When the months started to tick away, Peeta suggested, very gently, that we might tell my mother. _“She might know_ ,” he said. “ _If there’s something we could be doing_ .”

  
But as much as I had worked on repairing my relationship with my mother in the years since the war, this felt like a weakness, somehow. Like something I didn’t want to share with anybody other than Peeta.

Peeta, who was so patient the time I was so very sure I was pregnant and then fell apart completely when my cycle came. It felt selfish, having him comfort me when he’s known longer than I have that he wanted this. That we wanted this. But he was so kind. So patient. So sure that my healer mother might have an idea that would work better than me putting my feet up on the wall, after.

But we didn’t. And Peeta wouldn’t push me to. Not even as the months ticked by without any luck.

So Haymitch didn’t know what he was walking into when he came to our house for our weekly dinner and found the three of us on the porch swing. Me against Peeta’s chest, Aster against mine, his arms around us both. I watched as his eyes flicked over our faces, maybe thinking for a second that Aster was one of the Cartwright children. Peeta and I do babysit them frequently enough. But Aster isn’t a Cartwright. And he was ours, even if so recently.   
  
“Haymitch,” Peeta said, and his voice was so even, so happy. “Meet Aster. Our son.”   
  
Our son. Our _son_.   
  
“Well,” said Haymitch, and I braced myself for him to say something stupid. But he just said, “I guess that’s better than it being some random toddler.”   
  
. . .   
  
  
“Oh, wow,” Peeta says from his spot kneeled on the floor beside Aster. He’s using that special, sweet voice he reserves just for him. “Can you say, ‘thank you, Uncle Haymitch?” he asks, and when he nudges the ugly stuffed goose a little closer to Aster, Aster flinches away from it.   
  
Peeta drops the toy, gathering Aster up into his arms instead.   
  
“Hey, it’s all right,” he says. “It’s okay, baby, it’s just a toy. Don’t be scared.”   
  
“Thought he’d like it,” Haymitch says, a little bitter. Like he feels rejected by the two year old. “Sent away for it and everything.”   
  
“And we appreciate that,” Peeta says. “Don’t we, Aster? But sometimes--”   
  
Aster looks distrustfully at the stuffed goose on the floor, and then sucks in a little breath and says, “Thank you, Uncle Ay-Mish,” with almost no conviction at all.   
  
Whatever Peeta was going to say -- probably some lecture for Haymitch about needing to be patient with our son -- is forgotten.   
  
“That’s _right_ ,” Peeta says, starry eyed. “That’s your Uncle Haymitch.”

  
Uncle. We didn’t decide before now, apparently, that that was what we wanted Aster to call him. I guess it fits as well as anything. When he’s older, we’ll have to explain, maybe. Why all of his aunts and uncles are scattered around the country and cobbled together, this way. Why his father and I are covered in scars. Why I still wake up screaming, sometimes.   
  
“Uncle, huh?” Haymitch repeats after a long moment, knocking me with his shoulder on his way out. “Sweetheart, nobody’s gonna believe I’m your brother.”   
  
It manages to make me laugh, though I can feel the anxiety bubbling up inside of me. Aster has been home with us for a couple days, now, but we’ve been so concerned with what’s right ahead of us that I haven’t even had time for my usual fears. For the things that kept me from agreeing to this for so very long.   
  
“Hey, Katniss?” Peeta asks from across the living room, standing up and keeping Aster tucked to his side. “I think it’s time for a bath. You wanna come with us?”   
  
I shake my head. “I’m gonna do the dishes,” I say.   
  
Peeta’s smile slips, just a little. I think he knows me well enough to know what’s going on, because he crosses the room, puts Aster on his other side, and kisses me very gently.   
  
“The dishes can wait,” he says, softly, clearly intending on coaxing me back to myself. Back to him and Aster. “Aster would love for you to come help us get him all clean. Wouldn’t you, buddy?”   
  
Aster grabs at my shirt, not quite leaning away from Peeta as he does. He wants us both, Peeta is right.   
  
“Tell Mama, _‘_ the dishes can wait,’” Peeta prompts.   
  
“Dishes can wait,” babbles Aster, and it’s enough to make me smile.   
  
The dishes do wait. Aster splashes around in the bathtub and Peeta looks up at me, grinning.   
  
“We could take him to the lake,” he says. “Once it warms up a little. Wouldn’t that be nice?”   
  
Once it warms up a little. It would be a couple of months before it was warm enough to take him swimming, and though I already knew that Aster would be ours forever, something about the promise of a few months from now makes me feel a little lighter.   
  
“Yeah,” I say. “We’ll teach him how to swim.”   
  
“We could stay out in the cabin,” Peeta continues. “Pack a couple meals. Make a trip of it.”   
  
I think he’s trying to distract me, from earlier. We haven’t had a chance to talk about it. How could I? It’s not right for me to give Peeta new fears, if he isn’t already considering them.   
  
That night, I dream of a reaping. I dream of the name _Aster Mellark_ dripping from Effie Trinket’s lips. I wake screaming, with Peeta’s arms around me. He pulls me back against his chest. I can’t explain it. Can’t say it out loud.   
  
Aster blinks at me.   
  
“Katniss,” he manages, garbled, and then he grabs my hand in his little one and says, in what’s a near perfect impression of Peeta, “Don’t be scared.”   
  
. . .

“Who’s coming to dinner tonight?” Peeta quizzes, leaning Aster a little closer to the table, so he can set down the forks beside each plate. Aster very much likes to help us. He also doesn’t like to be put down. I call him _magnet boy_ , because it’s like he’s drawn to us like one all the time. Not that we mind.   
  
“Uncle Ay-Mish,” he says.   
  
“That’s right,” Peeta says. “How’d you get to be so smart?” he asks, and the kiss he presses to Aster’s little chubby cheek makes him squeal with laughter. “You’re the smartest, cutest baby in the _world_ ,” he says. He keeps babbling, but I almost can’t hear him over my heart pounding in my chest.

“We won’t be able to say that anymore.”   
  
Peeta laughs. “Of course we can,” he says. “Because nobody ever--”   
  
“No,” I say. My voice is shaking. This isn’t how I wanted to tell him, and I haven’t taken a test, yet, but with how almost spitefully regular I’ve been since we started trying, there’s little else it could mean. Technically, I should have gotten my cycle right around when I started visiting him by myself. I just didn’t realize until today. “We won’t be able to say that anymore,” I say again. “In a few months.”   
  
Peeta freezes, his head snapping over to look at me. Aster grabs a fistful of his hair, but Peeta doesn’t seem to even notice.   
  
“Wait,” Peeta says, belatedly, though I haven’t said anything in a solid minute. “You -- you’re --”   
  
“I think,” I say. “I’m not -- I haven’t taken a test, yet.”   
  
  
Haymitch lets himself in. Finds the three of us pressed together in a big, messy, teary hug.   
  
“Is this gonna be what it’s like?” he asks. “You guys gonna just be cuddling every time I come by?”   
  
“Shut up, Haymitch,” Peeta says, though he laughs as he wipes at his eyes.   
  
“Shut up, Ay-mish!” Aster repeats, delighted, and Peeta hurries to try to correct himself, to tell him that it’s not nice to tell people to shut up, but Aster babbles it again and again.   
  
And I know, watching Haymitch, that he’s a goner.   
  
“That’s right,” Haymitch manages, trying and failing to hide his smile. “Shut up, Ay-mish.”   
  
Aster laughs again, my favorite, squealy kind of laugh.   
  
“We’re all going to have to be better about watching our mouths around him,” Peeta says, though it’s laser-pointed at Haymitch. “He’s like a little sponge.”   
  
“Oh, relax, kid,” Haymitch scoffs, rolling his eyes. “It’s not like I’m gonna teach him how to say fuck.”   
  
“Say fuck!” Aster repeats without even a second of hesitation. “Teach me, say fuck!”   
  
Peeta tries to look angry, at least. He really does. But neither of us manage it.   
  



	5. Grandma 1

The box arrives from District Twelve with my mother’s familiar handwriting. _Katniss, Peeta, and Aster Mellark-Everdeen._ I cut the tape and open it, and for a moment, I’m hit with the smell of her. It’s so familiar: rosewater and her shampoo.   
  
On the top sits an envelope with my name. It’s careful, looping cursive. I open the envelope carefully. She wrote to me on pale, pink paper. Everything she wrote feels so overwhelmingly sappy -- she writes about what it’s like, being a mother. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for her, remembering all the things she wrote about my father. About how her life changed when I was born. About how much she loves me. And my sister.   
  
We’ve never spoken about most of this. Even in the years since the war, while we’ve very slowly reconstructed something resembling a relationship. There’s still been a distance between us. One that I thought we both wanted. One that I’m now suspecting she’s only upheld for my sake.

_My entire life changed when you were born_ , she wrote. _You’ll make such an amazing mother. I’m so happy that Aster found you and Peeta._ _  
_ _  
_Underneath the letter is an array of gifts. On top, there’s a red, plaid baby blanket that belonged to me, once. I didn’t realize she even still had it. I hold it against my chest for a moment before I keep digging. There’s a small stack of picture books that she’s tied together with a thin blue ribbon. A few loose pieces of toddler clothes. And then, at the very bottom of the box, a tiny knit sweater.  
  
She asked me, when Peeta and I called her to tell her about Aster, if I was planning on knitting him a baby blanket. I’ve been working on since we brought him home, but it’s very slow going. A few rows at a time before he wants me and I have to set my needles aside.   
  
So she knit him a sweater, instead. The same shade of purple as the flowers he was named for. With little wooden buttons with flowers etched into them. It’s beautiful. My mother has been knitting longer than I’ve been alive, and the craftsmanship just on the little sweater is miles beyond my own abilities. But she left the baby blanket for me to knit because she knew I would want to make it.   
  
It’s beautiful, but it’s the simple thoughtfulness of the gift that takes me by surprise.   
  
  
“Hang on, Aster-baby,” comes Peeta’s voice as soon as the front door opens. “You gotta let me get your shoes off! You’re all muddy!”

  
I hear Peeta chasing after Aster’s little tiny footsteps, and then the baby’s shrieking laughter that must come when Peeta catches him. I’m grateful for the moment it gives me to pull myself together. The box from my mother has been sitting unopened for the better part of a week, now, and Peeta has been eyeing it, but hasn’t pushed me to open it.

He’ll want to read the letter from my mother. And he won’t want me to feel bad about it, but I can tell, sometimes, that if our mothers were switched, he would lean on her much more than I do.   
  
I pull out the tiny pair of rain boots and the set of building blocks from the bottom of the box and find another envelope. This one with Peeta’s name on it. I think it was meant to start at the top of the box and settled down at the bottom in transit at some point.   
  
Before I can even wonder what she wrote, Aster must have freed himself from Peeta, because he runs to me and hugs me full force, right around my legs. Peeta was right -- his pants and sleeves are splattered with mud. Even his little face is a little dirty.   
  
“Hi, Magnet Boy!” I all but sing, picking him up. He pushes himself against my side, as if it’s been more than an hour since he’s seen me. My clingy boy. “How was outside?” I ask.   
  
“Peeta said Im too muddy,” he says.   
  
I laugh. “You _are_ too muddy,” I agree. “You want me to give you a bath?”   
  
He sighs, looking put out, and I kiss his nose.   
  
“We’ll get you cleaned up,” I say, “And then you can open the presents from your grandma.”   
  
“Grandma?” he repeats, testing the word out.   
  
“Your mama’s mama,” Peeta supplies as he comes around the corner, his sleeves and pants also streaked with mud.   
  
I laugh in spite of myself. “Did I miss a mud fight?”   
  
Peeta pulls a face. “You missed our son finding the biggest patch of mud in District Twelve.”   
  
Our son.   
  
Even a little over a month in, I like the way it sounds so much.   
  
“You opened the box?” Peeta asks. “Anything good?”   
  
“We’ll see after Aster’s bath,” I say, and then pretend to really study him. “Maybe you need one, too.”   
  
Peeta grins.   
  
“I think we should tell her,” I admit as we climb the stairs. “About the other baby. I think she’d like to know.”   
  
“She would,” Peeta agrees, but the way he’s smiling sort of makes me think that he’s just desperate to tell someone about the pregnancy at all.   
  
. . .

My mother answers the phone on the first ring.   
  
“Katniss,” she says. “Hi. Did you get--?”   
  
“We got the box,” I assure her. I should have called her when it got in, last week, but I didn’t want to have to admit that I thought it would be too hard to open right away. “Thank you. It was -- really beautiful.”   
  
She sighs like she’s relieved. I wonder if she’s thought all this time that I was rejecting her again. Her gift, her letter, all the things she said. “Oh, I’m so glad to hear that,” she says instead. “Does the sweater fit okay? I thought -- I know they grow so fast, at this age, so it’s just a little big, so he can grow into it.”   
  
“It’s beautiful,” I say. “Perfect, too. It’s just starting to cool off out here.”   
  
“Aster loves it,” Peeta pipes up. “And -- Katniss and I really loved our letters. Thank you.”   
  
“You’re more than welcome,” she says. “I know I’m not nearby, but . . . If you need anything,” she starts. “Advice or support or--” she cuts herself off, sounding the way she usually does when she’s afraid she’s offended me. “Of course, I know you both will be just the absolute best parents.”   
  
Peeta reaches over and squeezes my hand.   
  
“We’re gonna do our best,” he says, though he’s grinning. “I’m sure we’ll be taking you up on that offer, though. It’s not like my parents had a lot of advice to offer me before -- before.”   
  
My mother gives a sympathetic hum. “You know where to find me,” she says. “I’m so happy for you both. If anyone deserves to have a child--”   
  
“I’m pregnant,” I interrupt.   
  
For just a moment, my mother is silent. “As in . . .” she starts, very carefully. Like I might mean something different.   
  
I glance over at Peeta, drawing my strength from him. Aster is asleep on his chest, seemingly not disturbed by our phone conversation.   
  
“As in we were trying,” I say. “Before we met Aster. As in we’re going to have another baby.”   
  
My mother sounds breathless in her excitement. She wants to know how far along I am, what I’ve told Aster to help him prepare to become a big brother, whether Peeta and I plan on having the baby in the house or if we want to travel to a hospital, just in case. Peeta looks like he’s seconds away from grabbing a notebook and making notes.   
  
“I can come to District Twelve, of course,” my mother says. “I’ve delivered so many babies. It would be--” she stops herself. “I would love to help. However you needed me to.”   
  
I blink. “Oh,” I say. “Maybe after the baby is born.”   
  
Peeta’s eyebrows pull together. He shifts towards me, but I feel more certain, now.   
  
“I’m sure there’s someone in the District,” I continue. “You shouldn’t have to come all the way from Four.”   
  
“I wouldn’t mind,” my mother says, her voice strange, a little pinched. “Katniss. Of course I wouldn’t mind.”   
  
“It’s fine,” I say.   
  
Two arenas. The war. My trial. My mother has seen me in pain enough, already. I’m not particularly fond of the idea of being so vulnerable in front of her. Especially not for something like this.   
  
“But we’ll call you if anything changes,” my husband says, always so eager to keep the peace with her. So eager for her approval. I can’t fault him for it, but I do find it a little bit annoying. Especially now. He isn’t the one giving birth.   
  
I find an excuse to hang up and when Peeta turns to look at me I shoot him a look that stops him from asking what’s wrong with me. He at least looks a little contrite.   
  
. . . **  
****  
**“I already know what you’re going to say,” I say when I return from the woods. Peeta is on the couch with Aster on the floor in front of him, busying himself with the blocks my mother sent. “So you can save it.”  
  
“What can I save?” Peeta asks, the corners of his lips tugging down.   
  
“You think I’m not being fair to her,” I say, tugging my boots off. “You think I shouldn’t keep her away. But if I don’t want her there--”   
  
“Do I get to participate in this argument at all?” he asks, rising to his feet. He’s trying to hide the way he struggles, but I notice. I wonder if he overdid it earlier, chasing after Aster in the mud with his prosthetic. “Or did you have it all in your head already when you were in the woods?”   
  
“Already had it,” I say, hanging up my jacket. “Were you going to say something else?”   
  
Peeta kisses me, very sweetly. “Was gonna ask you what you wanted for dinner. But, you know. Close enough.”   
  
Oh. Between the kiss and the diversion, some of my anger is sucked out. “I don’t care what we eat,” I say. “I just want mashed potatoes.”   
  
“Is it the baby, do you think?” he asks suddenly, and I laugh. I’m less than three months along.   
  
“Have I ever needed an excuse to want mashed potatoes before?” I ask.  
  
. . .

My mother sends another box. This one with things that she thinks will help with the pregnancy. A dark green, woven sling that’s meant to hold the baby against my chest once I give birth. Lotion for my stomach. More little toys and treats for Aster. Teas to settle my stomach.   
  
“You told her about me being sick?” I ask Peeta.   
  
His smile falls a little. “Yeah,” he says. “I was getting nervous. I thought--”   
  
“I’m fine,” I say. If I was being fair, I would admit that it isn’t entirely wrong of him to be nervous. I’m only starting to get over that portion of the pregnancy. He must have told her at least a week ago. When I was still in the middle of the worst of it.   
  
“You’re always fine,” Peeta assures me, smiling a little bit. “I just thought she might have something that could help. And it looks like she does.”   
  
“Yeah, tea and peppermints,” I say. “I could have bought this in town.”   
  
“But you didn’t,” Peeta says. “You know, it’s not the worst thing, letting your mother take care of you.”   
  
“I don’t need her to,” I say. “I only told her about the pregnancy because--” I stop myself. It’s not fair to say that I only told her because I didn’t want her to be hurt when she found out I suddenly had a second child. But I have no idea what I actually _did_ want from this.   
  
Maybe I did want this. But I don’t like it. I don’t like that it makes me feel childish. That it makes me feel petty and angry and like she is a few decades too late to try to dote on me.   
  
“No,” Peeta says, and his irritation is starting to show, now. “Because you never need anybody’s help.”   
  
“That’s not fair,” I say. “I let you help me.”   
  
He shoots me a disbelieving look. “You never tell me how you’re feeling. It’s like you want to go through this whole pregnancy by yourself.”   
  
“That’s not true,” I say. “What are you supposed to do, anyway? It’s morning sickness.”   
  
“I don’t know, Katniss!” he says, and he sounds frustrated. I know he’s trying to keep his voice low, because he doesn’t want to startle Aster awake. “That’s why I asked your mother!”   
  
I scowl. The worst part is, what he’s saying makes sense. “I’d rather you focus Aster than worry about me,” I say. “Whatever’s happening with me and the baby I can handle. I just--”   
  
“You told me you were going to need me, if you got pregnant,” Peeta reminds me. “I can worry about Aster and worry about my wife,” he says. “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t worry about.”   
  
And I realize, as soon as he kisses me, how badly I’ve missed him. He’s been right here, of course. And so have I. But it’s so different, with a toddler in our bed all the time. So different when we aren’t alone.   
  
It’s a little ridiculous to have sex in the guest room in your own house. But our mattress is occupied, and Peeta and I need each other. We always do.   
  
. . .

Aster calls me mama. So casually that it’s like the world hasn’t stopped spinning. _Mama._ It’s when I get fat. When I’m a little too slow for him. Mama. I’m his mama.   
  
Peeta doesn’t get that same privilege. I try to give it to him -- I try to give him everything I ever can. I coax and sing and all but beg Aster to say Papa.   
  
Peeta says he doesn’t mind.   
  
“Lots of people call me Peeta,” he said one night, smiling all lopsided.   
  
. . .

I am just past the six month mark when my mother tries to insist that she wants to help with the birth. Peeta tells her that we’ll talk about it, and I think -- hope -- that it’s to get her off the phone, but then he turns to me once the phone has been hung up, and it’s almost exactly what I told him I knew it would be those months ago.   
  
_I shouldn’t push her away,_ he says.   
  
_Can’t we use all the family we have?_ Peeta asks.   
  
_Do I really want some random Healer to be the first person outside of us to see our child?_ _  
_ _  
_That last one makes me so angry that I breeze past him, straight out of the house. He wasn’t there. Not all those years ago. I don’t talk about it, because it hurts too much, but can he really hold it against me? That small, horrible part of me that still isn’t ready to let my mother back in?  
  
Stupid, forgiving, kind Peeta Mellark.   
  
I know the answer to my own question. He may not hold it against me, he may not think I’m horrible, but he would find a way to move past it. He would have to make his peace, in order to survive.

  
  


I hear the wailing before I’m even through the front door. I drop my bag at the door and don’t bother caring where it ends up. Upstairs. Aster is upstairs, crying like he’s panicked. I pick out _mama_ among the sobbing and take the stairs two at a time, though I know it’ll only wind me faster with the baby growing inside of me.   
  
“I’m here!” I call. To him or to Peeta, I’m not sure. “I’m here! It’s okay.”   
  
I find Peeta in the rocking chair, holding a clearly distressed toddler against his chest. It’s obvious that whatever he’s been doing to try to calm him down isn’t working, and the look he gives me is nearly reproachful.   
  
I lift him out of Peeta’s arms, very carefully. “Aster,” I soothe. “Hey. Hey, buddy. I’m right here.”   
  
He quiets some, though he’s still hiccuping.   
  
“Yeah, you’re all right,” I say, bouncing him. I try avoiding Peeta’s eyes on us as I sing. It’s an old song, one of the first I sang to him, in the Community Home.

_People smile and tell me I’m the lucky one_ _  
__And we’ve just begun,_ _  
__Think I’m gonna have a son._  
 _  
__He will be like he and me_ _  
__As free as a dove_ _  
__Conceived in love_ _  
__The sun is gonna shine above._

 **  
**His hand wraps around my braid, but he doesn’t pull at it. He just stares up at me, pulling in shaky little breaths.  
  
“Mama,” he says, finally. “Mama’s home.”   
  
“Mama’s home,” I agree, forgetting about my song. “Yeah. It’s okay. What happened?”   
  
When he doesn’t answer, I lift my eyes to Peeta, who is picking at his cuticle.   
  
“What do you think happened?” Peeta asks. “He woke up and you were gone.”   
  
Oh.   
  
“I wasn’t gone very long,” I try to defend.   
  
“You didn’t say goodbye,” Peeta says, as if this is very obvious and I’m being obtuse. “Katniss, you know I don’t care when you need space,” he starts, and then bites his lower lip. “You read the same report I did, Katniss.”   
  
I hold Aster against me a little tighter. Peeta is right. I did. I have to swallow back the bile. All the hours he was left in his crib before, by his sorry excuse for biological parents. Surely they didn’t say goodbye before they left, either.   
  
“I’m sorry, baby Aster,” I say. “Oh, buddy. I’m so sorry.”   
  
He sucks in a little breath and stares up at my face again. Looking so earnest. So vulnerable as his little bottom lip trembles. So tiny.   
  
“I’m so sorry, buddy,” I repeat a couple more times for good measure, my lips in his hair. “I won’t leave without saying goodbye again, okay? But I’ll always come back. Does that sound all right? Every single time. I promise.”   
  
His hand rests on my cheek. Shorthand, by now, for _don’t cry_. “Mama,” he says, and it’s plaintive. “Mama. It’s okay.”   
  
It’s not. Of course, it’s not.   
  
“I would never, ever leave you,” I tell him. “Not ever. Me or your papa.”   
  
He purses his lips. “Peeta,” he says, as if to correct me. “You and Peeta -- don’t leave.”   
  
“Right,” I say. “Mama and papa don’t leave,” I agree.

Peeta crosses the room and rests a head on my shoulder, sandwiching the baby between us. Both babies, technically. “Never,” he agrees, his voice a little rough. And then to me, he adds, “I was trying to tell him--”   
  
I shake my head. “It’s my fault,” I say, and it’s so obvious I’ve been crying even to my own ears. “If he never forgives me--” I start, and Peeta shakes his head.   
  
“You came back,” he says. “I think that’s the most important part.”   
  
I hope it is.   
  
. . .

  
  


Aster holds my fingers in his fist while we call my mother.   
  
“Katniss,” my mother says, her voice even. “Hi. Sweetheart, I wanted to apologize for last time--”   
  
“Tell Grandma _hi_ ,” I prompt, and Aster smiles brightly.   
  
“ _HI GRANDMA_!” he shouts, like he has to be extra loud because he can’t see her.   
  
Peeta laughs, coaxing him to be just a little bit quieter. “What else were you gonna tell grandma?” Peeta asks, reaching over and tickling his belly.

“Thank you for my presents,” he continues.   
  


“Oh,” my mother says, and I think that maybe all of us just cry all the time when Aster talks to us. “Hi, baby Aster,” she says. “You are so welcome for your presents.”   
  
“Mama calls me baby Aster,” he says.   
  
Peeta smiles fondly. “I do, too,” he says. “But I don’t count.”   
  
My mother laughs. “Hi, Peeta,” she says.   
  
“Hey, Grandma,” he echoes. I think he must be glad to have a new name he can call her. He’s never liked using her first name, and she’s never liked having him call her Mrs. Everdeen. And he absolutely never wanted to call her Mom.   
  
“Mom,” I start, before I lose my nerve. “Hey. I’ve been thinking, and . . . you should come to Twelve. For the birth. If you still want to.”   
  
Her sigh of relief hits the receiver and crackles across the room. “Of course I still want to,” she says, and I wonder how long I’ve wished for that softness in her voice to be directed at me. How long it has been, and I’ve ignored it.   
  
Maybe things won’t ever quite be right between us. It’ll never be like she didn’t go away, when I needed her the most. But maybe I’m not doing any of us any favors by making sure we never quite get to the point where things are even just okay.   
  
“And--” my voice comes out so small that I have to clear it and try again. “And you could show me how to knit those tiny little sweaters, maybe?”   
  
  



	6. Grandma 2

********Aster sits on the counter, a speck of blue frosting on his nose. I reach over to wipe if off with my thumb and he giggles. He loves helping when I bake, which mostly just means keeping me company and trying not to get frosting or crumbs all over the place when I press cookies into his chubby little hands.  
  
“Daddy,” he says.   
  
“Aster,” I return, piping some icing onto another sugar cookie.   
  
“Baby’s gonna be here any day, right?” he asks, though I’m sure he already knows the answer. Katniss and I have talked about very little else in the last couple of weeks.   
  
“Any day, Buddy,” I agree.   
  
“And Daddy?” he asks, kicking his little dimpled legs.   
  
“Yeah, buddy?”   
  
“Baby’s gonna be tiny, right?”   
  
I grin. “Yeah,” I say. “Baby’s gonna be really tiny. So we have to be gentle, right?”   
  
He nods, very serious about this responsibility.   
  
“Are you excited to be a big brother?” I ask.   
  
His head bounces again, a little happier this time.   
  
“Good,” I say. “I’m excited for you to be a big brother, too.” I reach over and tickle his belly and he squirms and giggles. “I think you’re gonna be the _best_ big brother.”   
  
“Daddy, are you a big brother?” he asks.   
  
Oh. I shake my head. Katniss is right -- we need to be ready for these questions. Need to not be completely winded by them. “No, buddy,” I say. “I’m just a daddy.” Redirect. Redirect. What else can I--?   
  
“Are you a _little_ brother?” he asks.   
  
I shake my head before I realize it’s a lie. “You know what?” I ask. “I was once, but it was a long time ago.”   
  
Aster purses his lips.   
  
_Please don’t ask more questions_ , I think. And then, almost like a prayer, _please don’t ask Katniss about this_. Because it’s not even like I was close to my brothers. Not like she was with Prim.   
  
“Hey, who’s gonna come help with the baby?” I ask.   
  
“Grandma!” he answers.   
  
“That’s right,” I say.

“Daddy.”

“Buddy.”

He screws up his little face at me, maybe mad not to have my full attention. I mirror it and he giggles again.

“You got grandma?” he asks.

“We're gonna go get Grandma this weekend,” I say. “That’s why you're being such a big help with the cookies.”

“No.” Aster frown. “Grandma's Mama's mama. Where's your mama?”

My grip on the frosting bag tightens and he howls with laughter at the bright blue mess on the counter.

“Mess,” he says helpfully.

I scoop some up on my finger and smear it on his little lip. It's a messy diversion but one that works. He shouts with laughter and reaches for my face.

“Maybe we shouldn't--” I start, far too late. My reward for starting this game is a face full of toddler sticky frosting and this almost growling laughter from Aster, way down deep in his belly.

And no more questions about my dead mother.

  
  


“What is _happening_ out here?” my wife asks as she rounds the corner, her playful amusement fading to genuine surprise and confusion at the state of the kitchen. And of us.

“Daddy made a mess,” my traitor son supplies.

“I can see that,” Katniss returns, and she's trying to fight her smile.

“Aster, buddy,” I say, leaning in very close so we won't be overheard. “You know what I think your mama needs?”

He turns to look at me, riveted. He loves giving things to his mother. Especially big sticky messy kisses.

“I think she needs a big Aster kiss,” I say, lifting him up off the counter. “You wanna go give her one?”

He nods and practically hits the ground running. Katniss tries to come up with a good excuse, I can tell, but he reaches her, blue hands first and tugs at her pants.

She shoots me a stunned look and I push off the counter, crossing the room and picking him up.

“Oh, buddy,” I say. “You need a boost, don't you?”

He throws himself at her as soon as he's up high enough.

“Hi buddy!” Katniss says, unwilling even with the mess to make him think she doesn't want his kisses. “Your daddy is so lucky I'm pregnant, isn't he?”

“I already knew that,” I supply, leaning down for a kiss. She pulls her face away from mine, less concerned about my feelings. “I'm the luckiest man in the world,” I say.

This does earn me a kiss.

And an unhappy squeal when I very tenderly wipe some of the frosting from my hand onto her cheek.

Aster gives us that new laugh again, though, and Katniss can't help her own.

“What _is_ that?” she asks me very softly.

“Oh that?” I ask. “I think that's the _frosting fight with Daddy_ laugh. It's new.”

We don't get any more frosting onto the sugar cookies.

. . .

“Hey.” Katniss slides in beside me, positioning herself so she can take over the dying half of the dishes. We have a fancy, Capitol dishwasher, but sometimes I just like the familiar work of scrubbing dishes. “You okay?” she asks.   
  
“I’m fine,” I say, but it isn’t convincing. We had a good night, the three of us. A frosting fight and then a bubble fight while we gave Aster his bath. “You?”   
  
“I’m good,” she says. “I’m ready to be less pregnant. But I’m good.”   
  
“Any day now,” I say.   
  
“And then our lives change all over again,” she adds, very softly. I can tell she’s anxious about that, so I give her a kiss on the forehead.   
  
“And then we get to meet our second baby,” I say. It sounds better when you say it like that. “That’s all it is,” I say. “Another baby to love.”   
  
She swallows. Rests her hand on her stomach. “I think,” she starts, and then shakes her head, just a little. “I think life is just so good, right now,” she says, very softly.   
  
I can’t help my smile, even as I kiss her. “And we’ve just begun,” I say not even bothering to try to sing it. She’ll know what I mean. It’s from one of her favorite songs to sing to Aster.   
  
It earns me a laugh. “Yeah,” she says. “You’re right.”   
  
We work on the dishes in silence for a few minutes before I say,   
  
“Aster was asking me if I had a mama.”   
  
“Oh, fuck,” she says, very softly. “What did you say?”   
  
“I just -- kind of changed the subject,” I admit.   
  
“Are you okay?” she checks.   
  
I don’t know how to respond to that. “I just --” I start, and then swallow. “It’s fine. You know? He’s a baby. But -- then we had the frosting fight, and I just . . . keep thinking about how Rye and I made a mess in the bakery exactly once over the summer in high school and we had to wear long sleeves for weeks.”

  
She leans her head against my chest.   
  
I tried for years to come up with one good memory of my mother, and I never ended up scrounging one up. “I didn’t realize having a kid would mean I thought about her this much,” I admit. “And I -- I know maybe it’s just because I grieved her all that time ago, but Katniss? I’m --” I have to work to swallow the lump in my throat. “I’m so glad she never gets to meet our children.”   
  
Katniss forgets the dishes entirely and hugs me tightly, pressing her entire face against my chest.   
  
“And that’s horrible,” I say, because she isn’t seeming to understand what the problem is. “It’s -- it’s heartless.”   
  
Katniss pulls her head back and stares at me for a moment before she speaks. “You’re a lot of things, Peeta, but you’re not heartless.”   
  
I’m still so close to crying.   
  
“You’re a good father,” she tells me, reaching up to cup my jaw. If she minds the scratch of a day’s worth of facial hair, she doesn’t show it. “That’s all it means,” she says. “It means you want our babies to be safe.”   
  
I shiver. “Sometimes,” I admit, hoarse. “Sometimes I look at him, and I just . . . can’t believe my father never did anything.”   
  
Her nostrils flare at the thought. I can tell she’s trying to pull herself together. Like one of us should be rational and calm tonight. “Your father was not a quarter of the man you are,” she tells me. But she says it like she’d prefer to say something much worse about my father.   
  
“I love you,” I manage, pressing my forehead against hers.   
  
“I love you,” she returns. “Even when you teach our son that it’s okay to get frosting all over the place.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey. I reuploaded this because it's one of a few fics I'm not gonna be able to convert into original fiction. As with mine and everyone else's work, this is subject to removal at any time. Please don't take this as an indication that many -- if any -- of my other fics will be returning, I'm just dipping my toes again.


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